Our weekend

It's amazing to me how many fruit trees we see in people's yards. And they have LOTS of fruit on them. Let me see...so far I've seen cherry, pear, apple, plum, white plum, orange, lemon and I'm sure others that I didn't know what they were. Of course, there are also red and black raspberries, blueberries and Johannes berries. We're really behind in that area. Of course it wouldn't benefit us long term, but we want to get some different fruit trees planted in the back yard. We were out back with Gabby the other evening and our neighbor came out and wanted to know if we would like to have some white plums. Of course we did, so he gave us this container full. I'd never seen white plums before. They weren't too bad, but not quite as sweet as what we usually have from the store. I just love the idea of getting fruit from your own trees.

Friday morning Sam dropped the truck off at the garage for some work and he didn't get home early enough to get it that evening. So...Saturday morning we walked down the hill to the garage. On the way we stopped in at the farmer's market. The produce at the market is so fresh looking. It seems a bit more expensive than the store though. At least compared to commissary prices. I love going out early here in Germany. You may not be able to see it real clear, but the picture to the right is going down our street toward town and every morning people hang their bedding out the windows to air out. I love the long standing rituals that you see here in Europe. I don't think I've ever seen bedding hanging out of windows back in the states.


I'm not real sure about this, but I think almost every town has one of these fresh water spigots. This one is dated back several hundred years. I can't help but think at one time they were the water troughs for the horses. I could be wrong though. Sometimes you see people drinking the water, so I'm sure it's pretty fresh.


We found this sign very interesting. Don't take my word for it, but from what we got from Sam's translation is that Plattenhardt claims to be the home of the father of U.S. Aviation. Hmmmm. I learn something new every day. I didn't realize U.S. Aviation started in Germany. It seems like almost all German towns have a claim to fame. I guess that's ours.

This was just a beautiful rose that I saw outside of the bakery we stopped at for breakfast.

The Farmer's Market we visited

One of the many things I love about living here is the abundance of historic places to visit. Sunday evening Sam and I went out for a drive. We wanted to see what was on down the road past our exit. We went through a few small villages and saw some really neat antique stores that we want to go visit sometime. We ended up on a road that we'd been on before and knew there was an old monastery there. We had the nicest time walking through the grounds. It was built in the 1100's. We don't know the history of it for sure, but from what Sam read it sounds like it was originally built as a monastery, then was taken over by a king for awhile who built up the castle walls. I'm not real sure what it's used for now. There is a church on the grounds. We happened to show up just in time for a musical concert. It was a choir accompanied by a string ensemble. It sounded beautiful in that old stone building. We didn't stay for the whole concert, but could hear the singing as we walked around the grounds looking at the other buildings. It was just a beautiful evening that we really enjoyed together. Here are a few more pictures from last night.

Sam standing at the entrance to the Kloster Bebenhausen

Me standing in front of one of the old buildings

Me in front of a tower that in the late 1800's was used as a restaurant then later a guest house.

A section of Kloster Bebenhausen

Today I booked us on a USO tour for next weekend. We're going to tour Eagle's Nest (which was built for Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday) and visit the salt mines. Should be interesting. We haven't gone on a USO tour yet, so we wanted to see what that's like. It does cost money, but would if we drove too and this way we're pretty sure we won't spend several hours lost. We're pretty good at getting ourselves lost. We're thinking about investing in a GPS navigator for the car.

The cool weather has returned and I'm loving it! It's very windy and rainy out today, but it really feels nice. Well, I better get busy. Have some things that need to get done today. Until next time....